


Larger Than Advisable

by chantel_k



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Age Difference, Eventual Romance, F/M, Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers Spoilers, Hurt/Comfort, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-24 10:01:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30070566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chantel_k/pseuds/chantel_k
Summary: Edmont de Fortemps is newly retired and looking for a diversion when the Warrior of Light returns from her travels abroad, filled with grief and a frankly unhealthy amount of light aether. Ostensibly he can do nothing about the latter, but has much experience with the former.And thus the tale of two lonely people and a simply obscene amount of visitors begins.
Relationships: Edmont de Fortemps/Warrior of Light
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	Larger Than Advisable

**Author's Note:**

> welcome to my gremlin project: make edmont de fortemps fuckable
> 
> Some housekeeping:  
> A: I normally write wol x wol. I apologize for any character inaccuracies as I have never written npc x wol before.  
> B: I am coked up on Tolstoy and he has possessed my brain and words so everything is quite filled with affectation. It is impossible to remedy.  
> C: If you have some way to change fonts I recommend reading this in Georgia because it looks pretty. But I know nothing of web design.  
> D: This fic uses my WoL and there is some mention of characters from my long-running wol x wol story but as this is an au offshoot it shouldn't be necessary to read that one at all so just enjoy yourself here, darling.

The Warrior of Light stepped out of The Rising Stones and onto the busy boulevard of Revenant’s Toll with a weary tread.

She had delivered all the news of The First to Tataru with a steady, carefully firm voice, had received condolences and a length of black cloth upon request and now stood quite at loose ends by the bustling aetheryte plaza.

“Where to now? Where can I go now?” She asked the great crystal as it hummed in its orbit.

“Not to the free company with its memories, not to an inn alone.”

Mankind seemed so small next to the great truths she had gleaned, compared to the losses she had incurred.

Just then, a star shot across the sky in a prismatic arc, barely visible against the early evening dusk.

She tracked its course with rueful eyes, for the only wish she had was thoroughly ungrantable. 

But as it soared towards the north, she mounted her chocobo and pulled her fat cat onto her lap.

“Let’s go home away from home then, shall we?” she murmured to the obese creature and with a click of her tongue the chocobo began to trot Ishgard-ward.

❊❊❊❊❊

Edmont de Fortemps was enjoying his third month of retirement by re-honing his skills at the billiard table when his-no, _the_ steward knocked on the door with an urgent rap.

“Come in.” the elezen called with a groan as he straightened up from his bent position over the table only to feel his spine protest.

“My lord. One of your-the wards has returned from abroad.” the man uttered, then paused in the same pained way he always did before delivering bad news.

Edmont set his pole aside on the rack and picked up his cane at the sound of it.

“It is the Mistress Mother and she appears to be wearing mourning.”

Edmont’s heart clenched.

❊❊❊❊❊

The Warrior of Light stood in the foyer, divesting herself of a heavy black wool cloak as Edmont entered the room to greet her.

He paused in the doorway at the sight of the black hat perched high on her head: a miniature paper-mache crow was pinned cockily to the brim amidst a sea of silk poppies.

No wonder the servant had noted mourning.

The dress beneath her cloak only confirmed the house's suspicions: black wool and jet buttons.

However, the bloodless, drawn expression on her face said the most.

Edmont moved at the sight without thinking, drawing near with a determined step.

"My dear ward."

She turned her pained eyes up to him as he came.

"Count Fortemps-"

He held a hand up.

"No more. Artoirel has taken my seat. I am now only an old man. And my long years tell me you have...news."

He watched as her face collapsed, eyes shimmering with held-back tears.

"Yes. Alacran...Your other ward is...dead. I thought you ought to know, that Emmanellain deserved to know he shan't be receiving sparring lessons any longer..."

She swayed a little on her feet and clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle a sob.

Her shoulders shook just once, and then she withdrew her hand just as quickly to reveal her thin lips set firmly together.

"Forgive me, Edmont. I have seen...too much. Learned too much and lost… many things."

Edmont's heart went out to her instantly. Having known his own share of mourning, the signs of bone-weary grief were obvious.

"There is nothing to forgive." He came the rest of the way to her gently, cane clicking against the floor.

"Stay with us; however long you wish. Fortemps has always been yours."

She tilted her head back to look at the old lord's face, found only affection and smiled slightly at the sight.

"Thank you" she softly uttered and then with uncustomary weakness, she shuddered and fainted.

❊❊❊❊❊

Edmont saw her knees cave under her skirts with an eye well-accustomed to fainting spells. He dropped his cane with a resounding clatter against the marble floor as he lunged with old, practiced grace to scoop her into his arms.

"Prepare her rooms!" He called over his shoulders to the gawking servants as he drew her too-light body up in his arms.

"Yes, Ser!" a white-faced maid frantically nodded before sprinting down the hall.

Edmont brushed his knuckles against the woman's brown forehead and frowned.

"A chirurgeon must be fetched as well."

"At once, Ser" bowed his steward.

"And tea, of course!" Edmont fired over his shoulder as the steward swung the front door open and vanished into the snow-storm outside.

And as Edmont briskly strode down the hall to the room given to the creature in his arms, his cane lay forgotten in the foyer.

❊❊❊❊❊

With every long stride, the small warrior-healer’s frost-nipped cheek rubbed against Edmont’s chest. The embroidery of his gambeson pulled hairs free from their loose bun beneath her hat; revealing long, silver strands where gold had once been.

"You are but thirty, my friend." Edmont murmured to himself, staring at the loosed locks draped over his arm.

A small groan slipped through her lips at the sound of his voice.

"Ser…?"

"Hush, rest..." he soothed her as he carried her over the threshold of her chambers.

And as the familiar motions of nursing came over him, of unlacing shoes despite the ache of his arthritic fingers, of smoothing brows and tucking quilts, the thrill of usefulness swelled in his heart.

The maid bore in a steaming tray of tea silently and helped him prop the woman up on several cushions.

“Begging your pardon Ser, but you can leave her in my hands until the chirurgeon arrives?” she asked with uncertainty.

Edmont watched the warrior’s eyelashes flutter yet again at the scent of tea and moved to pour a cup.

“Oh Ser, allow me!” the maid begged, lunging for the sugar cubes, only for Edmont to cut her off with a brisk hand movement.

“Look for the chirurgeon, please.”

The maid acquiesced with a furrowed brow and left quickly.

“Ed..mont” the warrior murmured as he returned to the bed, tea in hand.

“I am here. Tea?” he offered.

“Please.” she begged, extending a trembling hand for the cup, only to slosh it across the bedspread as it passed between their hands.

“Oh...” she groaned and stared dismally at the growing brown stain. 

“Sorry, ‘m not in top form.”

Edmont shook his head, patted her knee through the bedspread and then poured another cup.

He brought it to her lips with careful, steady hands, meted out the pour with precision and retracted the cup from her thin pink lips until he was certain she had swallowed.

“Again?”

She looked with curiosity at him; as though she was turning him over in her head like some strange curio.

Finally, she nodded.

“Again.”

❊❊❊❊❊

The chirurgeon arrived in the doorway with his hat askew and a look of terror upon his face.

“Is it really her?” he asked nobody in particular, then gathered himself with the air of a man prepared to do or die.

Edmont sat on the edge of the bed with the empty teacup and watched as the chirurgeon unpacked his kit while casting his eyes nervously back and forth from the patient to the old lord. 

The man began to look more and more panicked with every passing moment as he absentmindedly laid out an unnecessary number of speculums until at last he came to a dead stop and blurted out “Unless you are severely attached, it isn’t proper-well. It isn’t right to _watch_ -”

And Edmont became all at once aware that despite the familiar scene, the woman in the bed was not only not his wife, but was also socially unmoored from him now: Artoirel bore her care in his hands. And Edmont was nothing but an old man living in the same house.

“Forgive me. Age clearly is muddying my mind.” he offered peaceably and rose to wait outside.

❊❊❊❊❊

After the same interminable passage of time that Edmont had measured over and over throughout his life, the chirurgeon stepped out of the room.

He stood with arms folded and brow furrowed like a man who has all the weight of the world upon his shoulders, then spun on his hell abruptly and was at Edmont’s throat in a moment.

“What in Halone’s name is in that bed?” he screeched with the tone of a fishwife, coming but an ilm from Edmont’s face in a fury.

“Our saviour and my ward. The Warrior of Light.” Edmont cooly stated, staring him down, daring him to recall his overdeveloped sense of decorum.

The chirurgeon's eyes rolled.

“The Warrior of Light _indeed_ -chock to the brim with blasted light aether! Listen, Ser! That... _thing_ -” He flailed his hands with enough force to gutter a candle on a nearby candelabra “-That thing should be dead _thrice over_. I can do nothing! How can I?!!?”

Edmont raised one brow and pressed forward against his chest.

“Then what do you suggest we do? Let her die?”

The healer shrugged.

“Feed and water her, let her rest and then send her out to bleed away some of the aether.”

“Bleed it out?” Edmont bristled. “Leeching seems hardly appropriate.”

The healer rolled his eyes.

“If I had leeches that could help I’d need a fucking lake of them. No, no. A dragon, an army of dragons… Well, well, _someone_ should tell Aymeric he’s got a powderkeg in Ishgard.”

“ _You_ will not have that dubious honor.” Edmont at last snapped, clicking his cane on the floor with a dark look in his eyes.

“Very well.” the chirurgeon shrugged and picked up his bag.

“Good luck. I think I’ll go take up that post in the Forelands. Don’t relish being in her vicinity when she blows.”

Edmont watched the man leave and gripped his cane tightly.

“I’ll be sure to point her your way if she does” he muttered under his breath.

And as he began to walk towards his-no, his _son's_ -study, Edmont began to mentally compose a missive to Artoirel, begging him to come home from whatever tedious political summit he was currently trapped at. 

For once, the excitement was at home. 


End file.
